Doubt cast over lake fill bid

Ballarat Mayor Judy Verlin says the infrastructure is not in place to fill Lake Wendouree with purchased water.

A Ballarat businessman has started a campaign to raise about $1 million to buy the 3,500 megalitres needed to fill the lake.

Councillor Verlin says the water would need to come through the Goldfields Superpipe.

But she says there is nothing connecting the superpipe to one of the two reservoirs that supply the lake.

"One of the big issues for us is the fact that the water that's coming in to the lake at the moment can come in via two different ways," she said.

"The water that's coming in from the superpipe comes into the White Swan Reservoir. There is no connection between the White Swan Reservoir that I am aware of so there's a whole range of outstanding issues there."